The finances of streaming have been a hot topic for the music industry since the services first arrived on the scene. A new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research adds some hard science to the conversation, examining the impact of Spotify on both music sales and piracy. Continue Reading
There’s a new streaming service on the horizon and it’s already attracted lots of buzz and lots of scrutiny. Aurous is a free and ad-free music platform that pulls its tunes from licensed third-party sources such as SoundCloud, YouTube, and Spotify. Within days of its official alpha launch, the service was hit with a lawsuit by the RIAA alleging massive copyright infringement. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Streaming execs chat at Advertising Week; will Aurous be legit or not?; IAB joining the fight against ad-blockers. Continue Reading
India-based streaming service Saavn has launched a campaign aimed at curbing music piracy in the country. The push uses the #SaavnVsPiracy hashtag and features videos by prominent Indian actors discussing the damage caused by piracy. Saavn said that 90% of total music revenue in India is generated by pirated music sites. Continue Reading
The RIAA and the BPI have issued their 200 millionth URL takedown request to Google. The RIAA has submitted 19,569 total requests and the BPI has made 295,730. These requests seek to remove pirated content from the web. The two record industry organizations for the U.S. and UK, respectively, have been pushing for the tech company to adopt stricter measures to prevent this type of music piracy. Continue Reading
A recent IFPI survey revealed insights into the music industry in Norway. The survey found that streaming secured a larger portion of the country’s annual market sales value at 75%. Downloads were just 11% and physical formats were 14%. In 2013, streaming accounted for just 66% of the market, and physical sales had a 22% share. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Spotify drops longstanding PR firm; continued piracy problems and potential solutions. Continue Reading